There were too many synchronicities surrounding our meeting and our life stories were so similar I was convinced we were twin souls. You were born the same day as I was, same year, same town, same hospital, twelve hours after me. It felt magical meeting you, Natalie. I’m so devastated it ended up being this way. You’ve made me realize what love actually is. It was never about the feelings, the dates, the useless nights of endless long-distance falling-asleep-on-Skype calls. I realize now that love is commitment, to stick together through thick and thin, to make the other person’s priorities your own. I gave you my all, and you gave me all you had the capacity to give. Looking back on it, I feel like maybe I was just more attached to you than anything. I don’t understand. I sure know I made plenty of mistakes, but I wanted to work past them so they could draw us closer together, not end up driving you from me. You gave me a promise ring in our second month of dating. I was so excited and I was so happy. I didn’t know you would soon use it as an excuse to try and tell off my parents. You pressured me into trying to marry you, to get engaged to you, to move in with you. I almost did. You had THAT much power over me because I LET you. I was in LOVE with you. Every time we made love, I felt like it was a union of our twin souls. It was so much more to me than just sex, like it ended up being for you. Every breath I took, I cried out your name in between the “I love you’s” and the hand-holding. I gave you my very being, and you took it and ran with it. I certainly know now that love makes you do some stupid shit. You even pressured me into not using a condom because “they hurt”. Is this what Stockholm Syndrome feels like? Growing attached to your abuser because the abuse gets comfortable and familiar? You never ever wanted to go to my family functions and parties. You always tried to get me to go to yours, which I had to push and beg and jump through hoops to make happen because I didn’t want to see you cry. You tried so hard to get me to become a part of your family that you forgot you were supposed to become a part of mine. I stood by your side when your seizures left you in the hospital, unconscious for nearly a month. You really had no idea how badly I wanted to just hold you and protect you and keep you from harm when you were in that hospital bed. I told you I felt desperate and almost sought out another person during that time because I wanted to admit to you I was feeling guilty about it and I had no actual intentions of doing anything to harm you or the relationship we had. Instead of being understanding, you used it as leverage against me to make me feel like shit. You complained and argued that I started to see you differently after you left the hospital. Of course I’d see things differently! You nearly died! That whole situation made me realize just how scared I was to lose you! Instead, you used it to justify your anger at me when you would get mad at me for doing things I enjoyed that brought me fulfillment outside of our relationship, like writing my music for my band and pursuing my musical career, and spending time with people I care about outside of me and you. You took me away from friends. You took me away from family members. You drove a wedge between me and my father. After all this time, I’m still not quite sure what to say to all this. You seemed to move on so quickly when you dumped me and our year-long relationship on Thanksgiving morning last year. Within two weeks you were dating another guy with my same name. Like, the fuck? I’m free to love someone else now like you did so quickly after me, but I’m still somehow convinced that I’ll “never get better than you”. I know I’ll get better. I know what I deserve, and what you gave me was the product of what I felt I deserved. I’m much stronger now. Thank you for teaching me what it means to truly love someone, and to know what to look for in a future wife. Let me say this now, she definitely doesn’t look like you at all, in character or practice.